Adil Najam and Moeed Yusuf Publish Op-Ed on Resolving Kashmir Dispute

Pardee Center Director Prof. Adil Najam and Pardee Center Research Fellow Moeed Yusuf published an op-ed titled “Kashmir: Ripe for Resolution” in The News, Pakistan’s largest selling English newspaper, on April 29, 2010.

The op-ed was based on a larger research paper by the same title that Najam and Yusuf published in the journal Third World Quarterly (Vol. 30, Issue 8, December 2009, pages 1503-1528), which documents and analyses 46 proposals made between 1947 and 2008 for resolving the India-Pakistan dispute over Jammu and Kashmir. This op-ed was published on the day after the Indian and Pakistani Prime Ministers met to talk about India-Pakistan relations at the Summit Meeting of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) being held in Thimphu, Bhutan.

Najam and Yousuf argue that “Notwithstanding the salience of terrorism as a talking point, Kashmir is certain to be on top of the Pakistani agenda. And while many have argued that both countries have lost the opportunity to resolve the dispute – the two are said to have been close to a deal in 2007 – in reality, the prognosis is not as bleak. Few realise that the events surrounding the Kashmir dispute have been transpiring – for some time – in a manner that makes the situation ‘ripe’ for resolution.”

They go on to conclude that “Ultimately, ripeness can only be translated into resolution if the political leadership on both sides can muster the political will required to conceive and implement an agreement on the basis of the latent zone of convergence. Our research finding is that the zone of possible agreement clearly exists and is evident to all sides. Whether the political leadership on the two sides has the political will to capitalise on this ripeness remains to be seen.”

Read full Op-Ed, here. Original research paper, here.